The present invention relates to electronic mail and business management systems.
Electronic mail, or “email,” is the transmission of private messages such as text entered from a keyboard (and/or an electronic file stored on a disk) over communications networks. Email messages are typically addressed to the private electronic mailbox of an individual recipient or group of recipients. An email system typically stores received messages in the electronic mailbox at least until the recipient fetches the message, at which point the recipient may take one or more actions by entering commands/requests to the email application program's user interface, such as forwarding the message to another email user, replying to the message, deleting the message, saving the message within a folder in the email system, etc. As used herein, an user interface is an interface that handles the input and output of information between the application program and the user of the application program, and may include a display screen as well as instructions that support the input and output of information to the application program. The user interface includes screens that are standard for the application program as well as add-in features, if any, that may be added to the user interface.
Email systems generally comprise a computer system directly or remotely executing a software program that manages email for a user or group of users. An email application program may also perform other tasks, such as managing a calendar, managing an address book, etc. Some examples of email software are Microsoft Outlook®, Lotus Notes®, Eudora, and Yahoo! Mail®. Email systems may use a format to communicate with other email systems, such as the SMTP protocol or some other standard.
As used herein, a business management system (“BMS”) is a customer relationship management (“CRM”) system, a supplier relationship management (“SRM”) system, or an enterprise resource planning (“ERP”) system. A CRM is a system that manages business interactions between an organization and a customer, partner, or supplier. For example, a CRM system may allow a company to manage sales or service related interactions with its customers. Examples of CRM software are SAP Business One® and Oracle CRM®. An SRM system is a system that enables businesses to manage their relationships with their suppliers and vendors, and an SRM's functionality typically includes interaction management, bid management, etc. In many respects, these interactions are similar to those in a CRM system. Examples of an SRM system are SAP Business One® and Oracle SRM®. An ERP system is a system that allows an enterprise to share customer, product, competitor and market information. Examples of an ERP management system are SAP Business One®, Great Plains™, MAS200™, and Netsuite™.
Each customer may be represented in a BMS by a record, which may be a data object in that it is associated with actions/functions that may be done to the record. An example of a data object is a business object, such as a customer business object or a quote business object. In BMSs, an “activity” record is understood to mean a data object that records an interaction with a customer, partner, or supplier. As used herein, a “business partner” refer to a customer, vendor or lead.
Among other things, the present inventors perceived a need in the art to facilitate the use of email messages within an organization that uses a BMS.